In Search of a Happy Ending

In this paper, we consider the question whetherbusiness ethics courses should have a happyending. The paper starts by considering ideasthat might give students who take businessethics courses hope that they can play a rolein promoting improved corporate cultures. Thepaper then explores Jesuit teachings as theyrelate to ethical decision-making. Inparticular, the paper highlights the idea ofdiscernment, which encourages students tobecome self-aware and to test their ability toact on principles of right and wrong. Ultimately, the paper concludes that there isno easy answer to the question whether businessethics courses should have a happy ending. Students who are ever mindful of the importanceof discernment are the most likely tounderstand the true nature of the moral mazesthey face in bureaucratic organizations.     

Industrial product managers: Authority and responsibility

This exporatory study concentrated on large industrial firms. The data indicate the IPM is well accepted, and has a very bright future. Their authority and responsibilities are similar to consumer goods PM's with technical aspects being the exceptions.     

AGRICULTURE IN A WORLD OF TRADING BLOCS

The recent trend towards the negotiation of free trade areas has potentially important implications for agriculture. Agricultural trade will increasingly be influenced by the treatment of agriculture within free-trade areas and other regional trade associations. Such blocs will have to deal internally with many of the same issues as face the GATT. This will tend to reinforce the move to less trade-disruptive domestic policies. Moreover, independent trade policies become difficult to maintain in a trade bloc, even if there is no common external tariff. This could lead to harmonisation of external policies. As a consequence, the inclusion of agriculture in free-trade areas could be an important part of overall trade liberalisation in years to come.     

A Research Note on Discrimination in Mortgage Lending

This paper examines the hypothesis that mortgage lenders rank applications from better to worst and encourage the better ones to apply. A second ranking occurs when the application is ranked by the loan committee and funds are approved from the top of the list until exhausted. A theoretically correct procedure for analyzing the resulting multivariate ordinal data is the little known rank multiple discriminant analysis. Preliminary results have revealed that this technique produces a "best" model with fewer variables and a higher classification rate than the commonly known multiple discriminant analysis, logit, or probit.     

Structural change in federal spending and deficits: Legislative and cyclical influences

This paper analyzes the behavior of federal expenditures and budget deficits since 1955. It is found that growth in these series is well described by two simple step functions allowing for three discrete increases in the means of the variables. When adjusted for the changes in means, both series are stationary with no significant time trend. It is found that the increases in means are associated with government attempts to implement countercyclical fiscal policy during recessions. Also, the increases in means coincide well with specific legislative acts which increased the budgetary power of individual members of Congress and ended the ability of the president to use impoundment as a substitute for a line-item veto.     

Computing all of the equilibria of economies with two factors of production

In general, no method to find all the equilibria of an economy is known that does not involve an exhaustive search. In this paper we argue that for an economy with a generalized input– output structure and two factors of production such a search is feasible, and indeed can be performed graphically. After presenting a search procedure, we apply it to an example with multiple equilibria. It is hoped that study of the simple two factor model will provide insight into the question of non-uniqueness in more general models.     

Product Location with Foresight

Traditional location literature concludes that firms will optimally differentiate in order to alleviate a tendency toward competitive pricing. However, it has recently been shown that firms will minimally differentiate if they (correctly) anticipate an absence of price competition. This paper examines the relationship between product location and the sustainability of cooperative pricing, in horizontally and vertically differentiated markets. Further, it describes equilibrium locations when firms are able to choose their locations jointly and when they must choose independently.     

打造更出色的董事会

董事会应该将目前这场危机视为重新评估其运作方式的一次机遇。健康的自我评估可以在很大程度上改善公司的绩效。